INSTITUTE, W.Va. – West Virginia State University (WVSU) will pay tribute to Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera,” in a free lecture by Dr. Miguel Zapata Thursday, April 24, at 12:30 p.m. on campus. Marquez died Thursday in Mexico.

“Marquez was an iconic figure comparable to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in the sense that they both represent and summarize an entire society or epoch. García Márquez’s influence extends beyond Spanish language literature,” said Zapata, chair of the Modern Foreign Language Dept. at WVSU. “His passing leaves a definitive void in the field.”

Marquez has been called the most significant Spanish-language author of his time and one of the great writers in Western literature. He is widely credited with helping popularize the literary genre, “magical realism.” He died Thursday at the age of 87 after being treated earlier this month for infections and dehydration at a Mexican hospital.

Zapata, who specializes in Spanish-American writing of the 60s, will be joined by WVSU students in a tribute to the work of Marquez during the lecture in Room 103 of the Davis Fine Arts Building on campus. For more information, contact Zapata at (304) 766-3068.

The event is part of the WVSU Faculty Lecture Series and is free and open to the public.

West Virginia State University is a public, land grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi‐generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.